"There is strong likelihood" that some individuals in Columbus City Schools will be referred for criminal prosecution, a letter sent by the State Auditor's office says. Further, the investigation in Columbus has widened to examine whether someone improperly changed individual students' grades after teachers assigned a final grade, according to the letter sent last week by the chief legal counsel at the auditor's office to a lawyer for the school district.

Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch

Columbus schools leaders acknowledged the district is the subject of a federal investigation today at the same time that the state auditor's office indicated it is likely to refer some district employees for criminal prosecution in its data-tampering investigation.

The district issued a short statement this afternoon about the federal investigation:

"The Columbus City Schools has confirmed that federal authorities also are involved in the inquiry into questions regarding student accountability data. Columbus City Schools has communicated with the federal authorities and has assured them of the District’s full cooperation in their investigation.

"The District is unable to comment further on the federal involvement at this time."

The Dispatch reported on Oct. 26 that the FBI had launched an investigation to determine whether federal money was misappropriated as a result of data scrubbing, but district officials said then that they did not know about it.

Meanwhile today, the district also released a copy of a letter from the state auditor's chief counsel that says "There is a strong likelihood” that some individuals in Columbus City Schools will be referred for criminal prosecution.

As a result, the letter says, the district’s attendance practices are being investigated separately from others statewide.

Further, the investigation in Columbus has widened to examine whether someone improperly changed individual students’ grades after teachers assigned a final grade, according to the letter sent last week by the chief legal counsel at the auditor’s office to a lawyer for the school district.

William J. Owen, the auditor’s chief legal counsel, also accuses the district of “organized and persistent interference” with the investigation.

“This continuing course of conduct does not demonstrate the level of cooperation publicly professed by CCS,” Owen wrote.

In an interview today, Owen said Columbus is being singled out because of evidence auditors have found. "We have obtained a number of documents from CCS, including documents that do confirm data manipulation," he said.

Robert “Buzz” Trafford, the lawyer handling the attendance investigation for the district, responded to Owen in a letter last week, saying that he found Owen’s suggestion that the district wasn’t cooperating with investigators baseless. He denied that any district employees have interfered in any way.

In the interview, Owen again accused administrators of interfering.

Owen said the auditor's office, which has been interviewing Columbus employees and others familiar with district data practices, has become worried that "the administration" appears to be questioning those witnesses after their interviews.

"We have expressed ... that we are concerned about potential witness intimidation," Owen said. "We respect the right of the administration to fix its problems, but are asking publicly that the administration not 'debrief' its witnesses."

The exchange of letters began after the district sought more information about which students the auditor already found had been improperly withdrawn from their schools. Although State Auditor Dave Yost’s investigation isn’t complete, an interim report of his findings found that all 10 of the 10 Columbus schools he examined showed evidence that they “scrubbed,” or altered, student data. But the interim report did not offer more details to the school district; Yost has said he can’t release more information yet because his investigation isn’t finished.

The district questioned whether Yost is right, saying that it couldn’t check his work because it didn’t know which students he found were withdrawn “without lawful reason.”

The auditor doesn’t have the authority to charge people or groups with a crime, but must refer cases of potential wrongdoing to the appropriate law enforcement organizations.